The First Bodhisattva Vow
Photo by Vonecia Carswell
This talk explores the first Bodhisattva Vow: Beings are numberless; I vow to save them. What does it mean to save another being? What does it mean to relieve someone else’s suffering?
As Zuisei explains, “… a bodhisattva enables others to be released from suffering by releasing his or her own suffering. By recognizing another’s pain as my own pain…by trusting that the best medicine is to turn to another and ask, ‘How can I help you?’”
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is lightly edited for clarity.
Twenty years ago, two 16-year-olds from rival gangs got into a fight. They had guns, one used his, and killed the only son of a single mother who had to sit in court and face her child’s killer. She stood up as his sentence was being read, 25 years in prison for second-degree murder, and she looked this teenager in the eye and said, “I’m going to kill you.” The young man was led from the room and to prison, where he began to serve his sentence.
Ten years went by, and one day the young man was told he had a visitor. It was the dead boy’s mother. She began visiting the man frequently, bringing him food and books, asking him questions about himself, telling him about her son. I forgive you.
The two started spending time together and speaking about forgiveness and reconciliation within the prison system. Five years went by, and the young man was released. He moved next door to the woman he had hurt so deeply all those years ago. She, in turn, checked on him every day, did he have food, clothes, a job.
One day, they were sitting at her kitchen table, and the woman said to him, “Remember what I said to you, that day you were sentenced?” Abashed, the young man said, “Yes, you said you were going to kill me.” Once again, the woman looked him straight in the eye and said, “That young man who killed my son is now dead. You are no longer that person.” They hugged each other. “I love you, lady,” said the young man. And the woman responded, “I love you, son.”
Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.
This is the first of the four bodhisattva vows. I spoke a bit about them and their relationship to the Four Noble Truths.
The story above is a remarkable example of what it means to save and be saved by another. Thich Nhat Hanh says in his version of the first vow:
However innumerable beings are, I vow to meet them with kindness and interest.
What does it mean to save all beings, after all?
Years ago I told my partner, Tenkei, “I’m not quite sure how I ended up being a monk, since I so often don’t want to deal with sentient beings” And she just looked at me.
“But, when you chant those vows every night,” she said, and paused.
“Yes?” I knew what was coming. It’s tough when your partner is right, isn’t it?
“When you say you’re going to save all beings, how do you think you’re going to do that if you don’t want to deal with them?”
“Well,” I said, “I just didn’t think that part through.”
Which wasn’t fully true, I wasn’t that blind, but it wasn’t untrue either. Each night I vowed to save all beings in some cosmic, metaphysical way, in some mysterious, liturgical way that I hoped wouldn’t actually involve me sitting down with these various sentient beings and actually listening to them.
At the same time, a part of me did know that’s what was needed and did want to do it and so I practiced it, often grudgingly, but gradually more and more willingly. And I hadn’t come across Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation until recently but I think it would have helped me because I was deeply interested in beings, at a safe distance, at first, but I was interested, so it would have been a good entry point.
I vow to meet sentient beings with kindness, and with interest. How many of those sentient beings do we ignore in our hurry, in our inattention, in our discrimination? This was the shift for me, in fact, realizing I didn’t want to be that person, the one who overlooked another. I know what it feels like to be overlooked, to be disregarded. I didn’t want to do that to someone else.
I know I still do, yet my vow is to meet all sentient beings, and to allow myself to be met by them, which you would think is what we all want, but it’s actually not that easy. You have to be willing to be fully seen, and that can be tender.
Version of the vows that appears in the Bodhisattva Jewel Necklace Sutra:
I vow to enable people to be released from the truth of suffering.
Which is the first of the Four Noble Truths and which the Buddha said must be understood. I vow to enable people, and beings, all sorts of beings, from the truth of suffering.
Notice how the vow is phrased: I vow to enable beings to be released from the truth of suffering. In other words, I’m not vowing to protect them, or prevent them from feeling this suffering. I’m vowing to help them be released from it.
I think it’s an important distinction. Think of a parent whose child is in some sort of trouble. They’re into drugs, they’re hanging with the wrong crowd, they’re on the verge of making a bad decision. As a parent, it would be natural to want to protect your child from such suffering. It would be natural to wish for them that they not have to go through this. But none of us can protect another, not really, not in the way that we think. It must be perhaps the most difficult thing, to have to stand by and watch as your child struggles their way through something.
I watched my brother, and it was excruciatingly painful, heart-crushing. I can’t imagine what it must be like if that’s your child, yet, there is no other way.
There is a sutra in the Pali Canon called the Bhaya Sutra (Dangers):
There are these three things that are (genuine) mother-and-child-separating dangers. Which three? The danger of aging, the danger of illness, the danger of death. A mother can’t get her wish with regard to her child who is aging, ‘I am aging, but may my child not age.’ May my child not grow ill, (illness in the broadest sense of the word). May my child not die.
A mother can’t have these, and for this reason, these are genuine mother-and-child-separating dangers. Of course, they’re genuine not only for a mother and child, but for all of us.
It doesn’t mean you can’t support your child, help them if they need help. Give advice if they ask for it. But ultimately, each one of us must walk our own path. At the same time, each and every one of us is capable of being released from suffering. How? By seeing it, by understanding what it is and knowing that it is self created. And then, even harder, by not creating it for ourselves or someone else
This is what a bodhisattva does. At the same time that they’re helping other beings, they’re studying their own mind, they’re striving for their own realization.
Let me repeat Samantabhadra’s invocation in the Avatamsaka Sutra, in a chapter which deals with ten vows that a bodhisattva makes:
May I purify an ocean of realms,
May I liberate an ocean of sentient beings,
May I see an ocean of truths,
And may I realize an ocean of wisdom.
I like this. I think an ocean describes it well. An ocean of sentient beings, an ocean of realms, of truths, of wisdom. You save them all, but that’s impossible. Yes, that’s why it requires vow, that’s why this is the work of many lifetimes.
In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha says to Subhuti:
Subhuti, someone who gives rise to the supreme, perfect thought of awakening [annuttara-samyak-sambodhicitta] will resolve thusly: ‘I shall liberate all sentient beings,’ and then having liberated all sentient beings, she understands that in truth, not a single being has been liberated. Why is this? Subhuti, if a bodhisattva has the view of a self, a person, of sentient beings, a soul, then that is not a bodhisattva.”
Having liberated all sentient beings, a bodhisattva understand that not a single being has been liberated.
A bodhisattva doesn’t have a view, or mark, of self, no mark of others. In reality, there is no one liberating all beings, there’s no beings to be liberated, there’s no liberation to do.
But this doesn’t mean there’s no awakening, no realization, otherwise what are we doing here? There’s just no view of self, no view of others, no view of liberation.
Why is this important? Because views get us into trouble all the time. It’s in the name of views that so much violence and conflict is created. Yet Buddhism has as the first factor in the Noble Eightfold Path: right view. What is that?
Knowledge with regard to suffering, knowledge with regard to the origination of suffering, knowledge with regard to the cessation of suffering, knowledge with regard to the way to practice the cessation of suffering: This is called right view. The Four Noble Truths.
So here we are, full circle. The truth of suffering must be understood, and I vow to help others do that, so that they may be released from it.
The Buddha is not saying to Subhuti, “Don’t save all beings.” He’s saying, “Don’t think you’re saving all beings.”
This is what a bodhisattva looks like but you wouldn’t want to say that, please don’t ever say that. The Buddha would say, there’s the mark of a self, there’s still clinging, and to that extent, there will be suffering. Don’t not do something for someone else, either stand in no view, hold no mark, remember there’s an ocean of beings that need saving, so your sense of self will only slow you down.
What beings are these that you’re saving, anyway? Who are they? Where are they? Vow to realize all beings, and know that these beings have no independent self, no independent existence. But, you see, it’s this very fact that allows you to save them! It’s this very fact that makes it possible for you to be saved by them.
When the woman in the story I told before went to see her son’s killer and said, “I forgive you,” he answered, “How can you do that? I haven’t forgiven myself.” And she said, “I can forgive you because of who’s in me.” She meant God. I forgive you because of who’s in me. She could also have said, I can forgive you because of who’s not in me. I can forgive you because of who you’re not, because of who I’m not. I can forgive you because you and I are not two separate beings, because we are not strangers—although it so often feels that way, doesn’t it?
We are not strangers to one another, not fundamentally. Oh, what this world would be like if we truly knew that. My brand of suffering is not a brand, it turns out. It is not unique to me, it is not that special. And if we doubt that, we can just pick up any sutra, read virtually any paragraph and find ourselves, our minds, reflected there.
The Buddha and those who’ve followed him have combed through the mind’s recesses and every possible affliction that we could suffer, they’ve documented. And not only that, they’ve prescribed a remedy for it. So they’ve identified the illness, they’ve offered the medicine. It’s amazing really.
When we’re lost, confused, we actually don’t have to look too far. The teachings lay it all out for us. We just have to remember to turn to them, we have to remember to practice, and then we have to practice, which is easier said than done but it’s also not as hard as we think it is.
It’s not like we’re meeting some obstacle that no one has ever faced before. We don’t have to figure it all out on our own. We have 2,500 years of teachings to support us, to help guide us. Are we using them?
So a bodhisattva enables others to be released from suffering by releasing his or her own suffering, by recognizing another’s pain as my own pain, by not being afraid, not turning away from what seems alien, what seems other. By trusting that when I’m in pain, the best medicine, the most effective medicine, is to turn to another and ask, “How can I help you?”
I’ve told the story of a student who’s son was having a very hard time, was away from home and struggling. She said to him, “Go find someone to help.” And he did. He volunteered at a refugee camp, was eventually hired and made it his job, his mission, to help those who needed help even more than he did.
This is Shantideva:
May I be a guard for those who are protectorless,
a guide for those who journey on the road.
For those who wish to cross the water,
may I be a boat, a raft, a bridge.
May I be an isle for those who yearn for land,
a lamp for those who long for light.
For those who need a bed, a resting place,
and all those who need a servant, may I be their servant.
May I be the wishing jewel, the vase of plenty,
a word of power and the supreme healing.
May I be the tree of miracles, and for every being the abundant cow.
Like the earth and all the pervading elements,
enduring as the sky itself endures,
or countless multitudes of living beings,
may I always be their ground and sustenance.
See all the different ways in which we can save all beings? We can speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, as we do when we do environmental work on behalf of animals or habitats, or for human beings who’ve been silenced and disenfranchised, who’ve been told, we don’t care if you live next to factories and waste dumps and nuclear facilities, someone has to live next to them, and it sure as hell is not going to be me!
We can protect those who need protection because, although we each have to walk our own path, ultimately we’re not actually unprotected. You know when we say “we dedicate these merits to the sixteen guardians and to all protectors of the dharma and their relations throughout space and time.” The sixteen main disciples of the Buddha, the arhats who were said to be the protectors of his teachings, in paintings each holds an object, bowl and book, a jeweled lasso, a scroll, ensure that the teachings continue, that practices continues. And we can do that for one another.
We chant the Sho Sai Myo Kichijo Dharani every day, a chant to prevent disasters. During ango we do the hakuyusan service at the beginning of the week, invoking Hakuryu Dai Zenji, the white dragon, protector of our buildings and grounds.
When he’s not present, we do a service for our teacher, for his health and well being, for a long life, for the realization of his vows. I do it every day, why take chances? So we can definitely offer each other protection.
We can serve one another, offer our time, our interest, our kindness, our patience, understanding. We can inspire each other, we can carry each other across when we’re flagging. We do that during sesshin. One person is dead to the world, chin on their chest, another one is sitting toweringly: come on, come on you can do this. Please don’t ever think that your zazen affects only you. Don’t make your zazen so small.
And, we’re not waiting to be enlightened to do any of these things, we just do them as the need arises. Daido Roshi used to say, “A bodhisattva practices compassion like a person grows her hair,” without effort, without forethought, without self-consciousness.
At the same time, it does need to be a practice, it needs to rest on vow, it doesn’t just happen. We have to want to turn toward all beings, turn to the world. Sitting quietly is not enough. It’s a good beginning, but it’s not enough—not by a long shot.
If it was, we wouldn’t need these vows. We wouldn’t need the precepts. We wouldn’t need liturgy and study and work and refuge and a teacher.
Since we do, why not make use of all these incredible upaya which have been developed and fine-tuned over a couple thousand years just so we can benefit. Isn’t that incredible? An embarrassment of riches, as one of my friend says.
But we don’t have to be embarrassed, we just have to use them. This is what they’re for, they exist just so you and I can wake up.
Explore further
02: Saving All Sentient Beings: The First Bodhisattva Vow Redux with Zuisei Goddard
03: Shantideva’s Bodhisattva Vow from Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life